Viridian Gate Online- Imperial Legion

by J. A. Hunter

  I had no idea what had happened, but Osmark’s suit was in pieces; gears, cogs, and steel plates were scattered across the ground like debris. The Artificer was on his feet, though. His fancy suit was in tatters and covered liberally with blood, but he was giving Carrera a helluva fight. I mean, Carrera had an edge, but Osmark was making him work for every inch. The Artificer twirled around the drug lord, firing rounds from his sidearm, hurling brass grenades, and slashing at exposed limbs with the buzzsaw attached beneath his gun.

  It was a losing battle for Osmark, but if I could get back in the game, we might be able to fix that.

  THIRTY-FOUR_

  Stealth Attack

  With a grimace, I pushed myself up onto my belly and downed a Regen potion, which nudged my HP back up to forty-five percent. Not great, but it would do for now. My Stamina was shot to hell, but my Spirit gauge was sitting nice and pretty since I hadn’t been using my spells against the Holy Templar. I had a Night Cyclone ready to go, so it seemed stupid not to give it a try. The worst thing that would happen was that Carrera would dispel the attack, but it cost me nothing to try.

  I staggered to a knee, still woozy from whatever spell he’d unleashed on us, and thrust my hammer forward as I channeled my hate and hurt into the attack. A flood of raw power raced down my arm and out through my weapon; the air above Carrera’s head ripped open like a wet paper bag. The tornado of shadow descended on the drug lord in an instant, howling winds picking up twigs, grass, and dead leaves. The cyclone also bought Osmark a handful of seconds to backtrack, and he used the small window to great advantage.

  As the night cyclone ripped at Carrera with tearing talons of air, Osmark deployed several nasty gadgets, which I’d experienced firsthand during our dustup back in the Imperial encampment. First, he launched a half-dozen of the gray caltrop grenades, which exploded around Carrera, jettisoning a wave of choking smoke and black spikes. Instead of letting them litter the ground, however, my cyclone reached out with greedy hands, snatching up the razor-sharp spits of metal, drawing them into the vortex.

  Carrera staggered and reeled, his gauntleted hands covering his exposed face as the metal spikes slashed at his skin.

  Next, Osmark launched a trio of the cantaloupe-sized orbs, which unfolded with a hiss of steam and a flash of light into deadly turrets—each about eight feet apart. The Gatling gun and the rocket launcher I recognized at once, but there was also a new type of turret, which was oddly boxy and flat.

  My cyclone finally gave up the ghost, dissipating and vanishing, while the turrets opened fire all as one.

  Bullets plowed into Carrera, carving furrows in his flesh. Rockets exploded like thunderclaps. And the third turret? It launched spinning saw blades of death, which lodged in Carrera’s armor. Even though Osmark and I were technically allies, I had no idea whether his weapons discriminated between friend and foe. And since I had no desire whatsoever to get blasted full of holes, I stayed back, launching Umbra Bolts at the drug lord from a relatively safe distance. As expected, hitting him with Umbra Bolts was about as effective as shooting him with a squirt gun.

  Osmark’s attacks were taking a toll, though. Carrera staggered under the sheer weight of the firepower pouring down on him, his HP dropping rapidly.

  “Enough,” Carrera’s voice boomed—though it sounded less like the Colombian drug lord and more like a demon out of the darkest region of Hell. “I grow tired of these games,” he growled as a wave of green light, ten feet tall, erupted outward in a perfect circle. I dropped to a knee and called upon my Dark Shield, taking cover behind the burning purple barrier as the wall of green light plowed into me like a bulldozer. The ground frosted over wherever that light touched, and ravenous cold nipped at my exposed skin.

  But my shield held, buffering me from the worst of the damage. I dismissed the defensive barrier as the wall of green fire finally vanished, then took a moment to survey the extent of the damage. The turrets were gone—mangled on the forest floor—but Osmark was alive. For now.

  The real surprise, however, was Carrera.

  He no longer looked even remotely human.

  He was bigger, his arms the size of small tree trunks, his flesh sickly pale and nearly translucent, showcasing a host of dark veins just beneath the surface of his skin. His horns had grown three times in size and glowed with an unnatural green flame. He was also fifteen feet from the ground, his lower body replaced by an army of burning tentacles, each as large around as my thigh and as long as a city bus.

  “I am not just Carrera,” he growled, his voice primal and unforgiving, “I am a living god, ruler of Morsheim, and servant to Thanatos. I am Serth-Rog in the flesh, and you will pay for crossing me.” This new thing that Carrera had become was intimidating looking, but he was also desperately hurt—his HP flashing in the critical zone. It wasn’t uncommon for dungeon bosses to have a final form, and I idly wondered whether merging with Serth-Rog had transformed Carrera from a regular player to something different. Something more.

  A World Boss maybe.

  In the end, it didn’t matter—the only thing that mattered was putting him down hard.

  “Time for you putos to learn a little respect,” Carrera sneered, thrusting his giant sword forward. His army of tentacles responded in a flash, whipping out with frightening speed: sweeping the ground, slamming into the earth, cleaving through trees. Osmark was a blur of manic motion, dodging, rolling, flipping through the air like an acrobat as he poured out hot lead from his hand cannon and hurled grenades with his free hand.

  I didn’t have much time to focus on anything other than survival because those tentacles moved with a life of their own, and Osmark wasn’t the only target.

  I ducked beneath an incoming tendril of flame, sidestepped another which smashed into the ground beside me, and swatted a third away with my warhammer. The attacks kept right on coming in lightning-fast succession, and it was all I could do to keep the limbs from smashing me into meat paste on the ground. And there was no way I could launch an attack—I was barely managing to defend myself. I dodged left, rolled right, and came up to a knee, barely deflecting an overhead strike with my vambrace, then parrying another blow with my hammer.

  Then I was moving again, dropping into a backward roll which brought me to my feet, before shuffling back as I knocked away strike after strike, each one coming a little closer than the last. I juked left, then darted right, hoping to get a chance to launch an assault, but Carrera’s blazing tentacles responded with a whirlwind of blows that pushed me back inch by inch, never giving me a chance to get in close. As a renewed wave of limbs flew at me, my heel caught an upturned root, and down I went onto my back like a lowbie in his first fight.

  This was a fight where even the slightest mistake—the smallest misstep—would mean death, and I’d just made a huge blunder.

  Carrera capitalized on it.

  A tentacle shot out low, wrapping around my ankle like a python, squeezing down as intense heat radiated through the leather of my boot, slowly cooking the skin beneath. I snarled, pushing the pain away as I hammered mercilessly at the limb with my weapon, but it was no use. A second and third burning tentacle quickly joined the first. One wrapped around my other leg—burning my thigh like a branding iron—while the third slipped around my wrist, slithered up my forearm, and clamped down on my bicep.

  With my right arm pinned, I couldn’t swing my warhammer, so instead, I thrust out my left hand—palm up, fingers back—and unleashed a torrent of Umbra Flame. The preternatural fire splashed over Carrera’s body, clawing at his HP. But that only worked for all of a second. A fourth tentacle shot toward me, wrapping around my left wrist, pinning my arm to the dirty ground, leaving me helpless. Up until now, Carrera had mainly been focused on Osmark—letting his sentient tentacles do the heavy lifting—but now he turned his inhuman gaze on me, offering me a piranha-toothed smile.

  In a panic, I triggered Shadow Stride, desperate to get away from him, but a notification appe
ared, politely informing me that I was totally screwed:

  <<<>>>

  Shadow Stride failed! You’ve been snared by Holy Fire and are unable to Shadow Stride until your movement is restored.

  <<<>>>

  “Finally, you are where you belong,” Carrera hissed, his words cutting through the message. “In the dirt, at my feet. And my face, cabron, is the last you’ll ever see.” He hefted his sword, giving it several graceful twirls, cancerous green light erupting from the runes along the center of the blade. I’d seen those same runes before, on the Malware Blade I had stowed in my inventory. He was going to kill me, and use that monster sword to pump me full of the Thanatos Virus, erasing me from the server. I bucked and kicked, sweat running down my face, my heart thudding like a jackhammer.

  My efforts were utterly futile.

  After all I’d done, this was it. The end.

  Carrera snarled, and I pressed my eyes shut, unwilling to watch my own death.

  But the blade never landed.

  Instead, Carrera let out an otherworldly screech, and the tentacles holding me tight spasmed and quivered, loosening just enough for me to wriggle free of their painful, burning grip. I flipped onto my belly and sprinted toward the trees, skittering around the trunk of a massive oak for cover as I shot a careful look back at the insane drug lord. Cutter hung from Carrera’s back. The thief’s twin blades were lodged hilt deep at the base of the thug’s neck. A tree bough nearby swayed back and forth, and it wasn’t hard to connect the dots.

  Instead of bolting like I’d told him to, Cutter had climbed a tree, waited for an opportune moment to strike, then launched himself through the air like a stealth missile.

  A stupid gamble, but one that had paid off big time.

  Carrera’s health was so low that it seemed a swift kick would put him down for the count, but despite that, he still had some fight left in him. His tentacles flailed and spasmed, smashing into anything and everything while he spun frantically around, bucking Cutter loose like an enraged rodeo bull. The thief hit the ground ten feet away with a groan, clutching at his ribs; but the real damage was his left leg. A broken tree branch, wedged against a boulder, had pierced his thigh like a spear—not only siphoning off Cutter’s HP but slashing his movement rate to almost zero.

  Osmark continued his assault, firing waves of ammo at the drug lord, but Carrera ignored him completely, rounding on Cutter with disgust painted across his inhuman features.

  With a roar, Carrera dove forward, sword extended, blade whistling toward Cutter’s face. And suddenly, I had a plan. Carrera was so focused on Cutter that he wasn’t paying a lick of attention to me. I had to act quickly, though. The madman was only a matter of feet from my friend. I triggered Shadow Stride, and time ground to a halt. I darted forward, slipping directly between Cutter and Carrera. I turned sideways, spread my feet, and squared my shoulders like a batter stepping up to the plate, waiting for an incoming pitch. My hammer was the bat, and Carrera was the ball.

  I raised my weapon above my shoulder, took a few quick practice swings, then slipped back into the Material Plane.

  My hammer was already in motion by the time Carrera saw me, and at that point, he was too committed to the attack to change course. With the augmented power of Serth-Rog flowing in his veins, Carrera was one tough SOB., so just sandblasting him with my hammer probably wouldn’t have been enough to kill him. But it wasn’t just my hammer blow. No, the force of his body weight was working against him. When the hammer punched into his chest, his bulky armor crinkled inward like a soda can, and his eyes went wide in shock as blood spurted from between his lips.

  “No,” he muttered, the word coated with disbelief, “this can’t—”

  He didn’t finish the sentence.

  His eyes glazed over as his HP hit zero, and his body erupted in a shower which swatted me into the air like a slap from a giant’s hand.

  THIRTY-FIVE_

  Celebration

  I leaned up against the wooden gate post, staring out over the sea of white tents and wavering campfires sprawled in the meadow outside Ravenkirk. Even from here, I could hear the chatter of friendly voices, the muted clank of pots and pans, and the strumming of lutes and hammered dulcimers as bards regaled folks with their performances. It sounded like a party out there, and it was. A celebration of life and victory, though undercut by a bitter current of grief. Thankfully, Cutter, Osmark, and I had all survived the battle with Carrera, but it’d still taken another two hours to finish off the Vogthar.

  And that wasn’t even the worst part.

  The worst part? The secret about the Thanatos Virus was out.

  The elite Vogthar troops all had the murderous Malware weapons, and as players looted the corpses, the terrible truth reared its ugly head. Death was roaming the world again, and no one was safe. Though we wouldn’t know what the perma-death toll was until morning, everyone knew deep down that some of our friends wouldn’t respawn. That they were gone for good. But that painful reckoning was still five hours off, so for now everyone celebrated. Reveled in the fact that they, at least, had beaten the odds.

  Imperials and Alliance members gathered around the same campfires, joking, laughing, slapping backs, and enjoying drinks, all held together by the tenuous truce. More than anything, I wanted to go out there and enjoy the festivities, the fun. But I couldn’t, it wasn’t right. The Imperials didn’t seem to have a problem with the rank-and-file Alliance members, but me? I was still a boogeyman to be feared and a criminal to be hunted. And it was almost as bad with the Alliance members, who put me on a pedestal I didn’t deserve. I was their hero, their idol, and that was almost as bad as being a wanted criminal.

  Eventually, I would head over and celebrate with the Alliance Faction officers at the Fragile Fiddle. But for now, I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts and decompress from the craziness of the last few days.

  “It’s lonely being at the top,” came a voice. Osmark stepped out from a pool of shadows, his hands tucked into his trouser pockets. At some point, he’d managed to shower and clean up his gear, so he looked fresh, clean, and remarkably well-rested. “That’s what no one likes to talk about. Most people dream about power, about greatness, but few of them realize the burden it comes with.

  “You can’t go out there, and neither can I. And even in our own circles, it’s different. We’re above the plebs, Jack, even if you want to pretend otherwise.” He moved past me and posted up by the wall, leaning his back against the rough-hewn logs, facing out at the sprawling tent city. “But it’s worth it,” he said softly, folding his arms across his chest, propping up one foot.

  “Maybe,” I replied, brow furrowed. “But most days I don’t think so. Most days I wish I was just one of them out there.” I nodded my chin toward the folks who were chatting and carefree.

  Osmark fished a stout pipe from his coat pocket, tamped a fat wad of tobacco into the bowl, then lifted it to his lips. A moment later, there was a flare of light as a plume of cloying smoke drifted up. “That’s where you and I are so different, Jack,” he said. “Me? I could never be happy as one of them. I’d rather die.” He paused for a moment, taking another deep drag. “I love the power”—smoke leaked from his nostrils like a dragon—“and I’d do anything to keep it. Anything. But you?” He offered me a charming, lopsided grin. “You stumbled into it. That makes it worse, I imagine—not choosing this life for yourself.”

  We were quiet for a time, him puffing contently, me enjoying the cool evening air and the sight of happy faces.

  “It could be like this forever, you know,” Osmark said eventually, nodding toward the field. “I really don’t like war. Power is what I crave, not conflict. We have a month, but we could have longer—especially with the Vogthar in play. Carrera and his new crew will give us all more than enough conflict to make even Enyo happy.”

  I didn’t reply, not at first. But I thought while absently kicking at the dirt with the toe of my boot.


  “No,” I said softly after a time, “I don’t think this can last. You said it yourself, you love the power, and anyone who loves power as much as you do probably shouldn’t be trusted with it. Because there’s no line you won’t cross.” I straightened and gave him a polite nod. “But we can enjoy it while it’s here. Good night, Osmark,” I said, heading back into the silent streets of Ravenkirk, headed for the inn where my crew waited. Everyone but Forge would be there—the poor guy had another five hours until respawn.

  Well, Forge and Abby. She was stuck back in Rowanheath dealing with the fallout from the invasion. Our forces had driven the Vogthar back, but it’d been a damn near thing.

  I trudged up the boulevard, weary to my soul, ready to say goodnight to the crew then meet up with Abby. It might’ve been lonely at times, but I wasn’t completely by myself—not with her around. I pulled up my interface as I walked, my boots clacking on the cobblestones. I’d already cleared out my messages and updates—I’d earned two new levels after taking out Carrera—so I wasn’t really expecting to find anything. But there, flashing in my inbox, was a new message, which had somehow slipped my notice.

  Idly I pulled it up, then froze when I realized it was from Sophia:

  <<<>>>

  Personal Message:

  Jack,

  You did well today. Working with Osmark, defeating Carrera, driving the Vogthar back into their dank lairs. A commendable effort. But this is the beginning, not the end. The Vogthar will only grow in power, and once players realize the danger of the Thanatos Virus, we’ll see more people defect over to the Horde. It’s only a matter of time. So prepare. Be ready. Your journey is about to become more difficult, not less. I do, however, have a small gift to help with that. I promised you a second reward if you managed to defeat Carrera, and I am nothing if not a lady of my word. Check your skill tree.